


Sink Or Swim

by csi_sanders1129



Category: Jumping Ship (2001)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 20:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/pseuds/csi_sanders1129
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts on Day 8. Jake can't take the staring anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I know. Another fic for another fandom that no one is interested it (barring the friends I forced to watch the movie while I was writing this (to whom I owe thanks)). And yeah, the three main actors are all played by the Lawrence brothers, but they're not playing brothers, so ha! Not weird. Goes AU after Day 8 on the island. The movie is up on youtube, if anyone is interested in watching it. Comments are awesome, characters are not mine - do enjoy!

It starts on Day 8.

They spend all day working on the raft: dragging and chopping trees to use for the body, braiding vines into ropes, sewing clothes together for the sails, gathering food that will last through a few days of travel. It’s all very physically demanding labor and they keep at it until late in the afternoon.

Jake and Michael go diving for a dinner of lobster and fish, and Tommy gathers a few coconuts and bananas for a sweet snack. They gather around the fire relaxing after the long day, but it’s not long before Tommy passes out for the night.

“Hey, you, ugh,” Jake starts, somewhat awkwardly, picking nervously at the remnants of a coconut shell. “Wanna go for a walk or something?”

Michael eyes him curiously, but nods and gets to his feet. “Sure, man.”

Jake leads him along the beach, a good distance away from camp. The moon is high, full and bright and illuminating the pristine beach with a fair amount of light. Michael’s a few feet behind him and Jake is not at all surprised when he stops, turns, and finds the older man staring at him. It’s been going on all day, yesterday too, probably before that, and Jake has grown tired of trying to figure out what exactly it means. Michael hates him, doesn’t he? No way he’s good enough to draw the attentions of the straight-laced, spoiled, rich jerk. Why does he even want it?

“So, ugh, why’d you wanna come out here?” Michael asks, eyes darting quickly around now that he realizes he might’ve been caught at his staring. Eventually, he settles on Jake again, gaze lingering a little too long before he looks out to sea.

He has no idea why he says it, no idea what he’s even thinking, really, when he blurts out a snarky, “Just wondering if you like what you see.”

Michael coughs on nothing, eyes blown wide and panic evident on his face. “Wh-what?” He sputters, because at some point, dreams about Heather Hitt or girls back home in California gave way to dreams about Jake that put them all to shame and he's not quite sure what that means just yet.

“Dude, you stare. A lot,” Jake explains. “So what are you staring at? Have I had something poisonous crawling all over me all this time? I’ve caught you at least a couple dozen times today, Michael.”

“I, ugh,” Michael tries, and ‘deer in the headlights’ is not even close to an adequate description of the panicked look on his face. “Nope, no.Nothing poisonous. Not that I’ve seen.”

“You’ve certainly been checking.”

“Very funny,” he retorts. “So I was looking. So what?”

“So, weren’t you supposed to be meeting some girl once you were off my boat?” Jake counters, having overheard a few conversations concerning the issue before the pirates hit. “Didn’t think I’d be your type.”

“You’re not. At least… Ugh, I don’t know. I’ve, well, thought about things, before. But I’ve never felt like this and I don’t know what to do and if my Dad finds out…” Jake can see that Michael is rapidly descending into panic attack territory with this out of nowhere identity crisis. “Jake, I don’t know how to deal with this.”

He settles a hand on Michael’s shoulder in a move that happens without any real thought. And, well, he’s not exactly new at this – there was that one time in high school, at least – so he opts for the easiest method he can think of to help Michael sort this out. It might get him punched in the face and it might make the rest of their time spent on the island seriously awkward, but if he doesn’t, then Michael’s just going to keep pining and that could end badly, too. They’re standing closer than he’d realized they were, so when he surges forward with no warning, he only has a short distance to go before there's contact. Lips press against lips and he’s more than a little surprised when Michael doesn’t fight him at all; instead, after a brief second of frozen shock, he kisses back and shifts closer and a hand slides up his arm and into his hair, the other curling around his bicep. It feels a little one-sided on his end, so Jake lets his hands settle just above Michael’s hips, pressing into smooth skin and hard muscle. A tongue probes against his lips, requesting entrance, and he gives in without hesitation. And if he hadn’t already figured out that Michael is a fantastic kisser, Jake would have gotten the hint at that point. There’s a slight nip at his lower lip as Michael finally pulls away, looking flushed and something close to star-struck.

“Wow,” Jake manages, blinking as he recovers his breath. Michael’s hands still linger, though they’ve shifted, one on his neck the other on his back, just barely under the worn fabric of his loose t-shirt. “So, ugh, you’re really good at that.”

“You, too,” Michael grins at him, takes the words as an invitation for a second kiss and then a third and then several more that eventually shift to focus on the sensitive skin of his neck. Jake is certainly not complaining, though explaining away the marks that Michael leaves behind on his skin to Tommy might prove an interesting task.

Somewhere in the chaos, Michael’s stupidly expensive shirt gets unbuttoned and pushed off his shoulders and Jake’s t-shirt ends up tossed in the sand - at which point there is more of the obvious staring that started all of this. Hands deftly explore newly bared skin and by the time they reluctantly decide that they’d best return to camp, they’re both pretty convinced that this is something that needs to happen again. Often. Very often.

Michael keeps him close on the walk back, though, a hand lightly gripping his wrist or settled on his lower back, like he has to be in contact at all times and Jake doesn’t mind that, either. And despite the spacious shelter they have, they fall asleep barely a foot apart from each other.

***

Day 9 dawns bright and early – they’ve still got a lot of work to do on the raft if they want to get out of here anytime soon. Tommy and Jake take off to go gather more supplies, leaving Michael to finish up with some of the work he hadn’t gotten to yesterday. 

When they return, he’s setting up to stabilize the tree they found for the mast. It requires all three of them to balance and secure it, so it takes a good bit of effort to make sure it’s not going anywhere. It doesn’t help at all that Michael’s sporting his usual blue tank with these stupidly form-fitting white sweatpants that draw Jake’s attention rather effectively. Only fitting, he thinks, when Michael turns and grins at him, that he get caught staring now.

No one can blame him if he happens to brush against the other man once or twice – they’re working in close proximity to stabilize the mast, aren’t they?

Tommy takes forever to fall asleep that night. Jake and Michael keep exchanging anxious looks as they try to keep up with the conversations that Tommy keeps reviving long after they've devoured another dinner of lobster and fish and crab. Eventually, finally, he falls asleep. Once they’re sure he’s out, they take off.

Jake’s smart enough to drag a blanket along this time, but doesn’t get a chance to spread it out before Michael’s on him, with rougher, more confidant kisses this time and hands that waste no time in divesting him of the sleeveless hoodie he’d been bumming around in all day. “So. You stare. A lot.” Michael says against his mouth, echoing the words Jake used against him just last night. How was that only last night?

“That is hardly my fault,” Jake argues, as he lets himself grope accordingly in response to the pants which are entirely to blame. “I wanted to drag you off somewhere all day long, so thanks for that.”

“Glad to know it was effective,” Michael counters, pulling away long enough to straighten out the blanket before he pulls Jake down with him.

Somehow, Jake ends up pinned under Michael inside of seconds, before he even knows how it happened, but Michael’s been leading things long enough. He moves to press his lips against Michael’s collarbone, letting teeth graze the skin before his tongue laves over the same spot, arches his hips off the blanket and up against Michael, who lets out an audible groan at the contact. This has all effectively distracted him, allowing Jake to pull some sort of impressive move and flip them over. “And now I get you back.”

Michael laughs, “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Jake’s straddling his hips, so his hands settle low, at the edge of his shorts, roaming up over bare chest and taut muscles that tremble in reaction to his touch. “Do your worst.”

“Alright, then,” Jake agrees, a wicked grin on his face and he tugs insistently at Michael’s stupid sweatpants to get them out of his way so he can set to work. “I will.”

***

Once Jake has enacted his revenge and proven to Michael that he really, really means what he says, they stay settled on the blanket, unwilling to go back to the distance and denial that the shelter represents.

“I want you to promise me something.” Michael says, voice breaking the easy, companionable silence that had fallen between them. Jake offers an ambiguous ‘hmm’ noise in response, eyes heavy and nearly lulled to sleep with the crashing of the waves on top of his present state of sated satisfaction. “Jake. It’s important.”

“What is it?”

“If, if anything happens, goes wrong, whatever. I want you to take Tommy and get him out of here. Don’t wait for me if the pirates are around, just go. Make sure he’s safe. Promise?”

Jake’s quiet for a long moment, but eventually answers with a surprising response: “Only if you do, too. If you have the chance, go.”

Michael’s hesitant, clearly not happy with that scenario. “Okay,” he says quietly. “I promise.”

“Me, too.”

“And, for the record, I’m sorry about your boat.” Michael offers a consolation he probably should have mentioned sooner, since it was in his defense that Jake was forced to scuttle the thing.

Jake gives a great sigh and stares intently up at the sky. “I, ugh, kind of hated that boat.” At Michael’s incredulous ‘What?’ expression, he elaborates. “I know I said it was my life, but it was mostly my Dad’s. It was his choice, not mine and I held onto it for all the wrong reasons. I mean, I love the ocean, love sailing, but… that boats been sinking for a while. I think I stuck with her for so long ‘cause my Dad loved her.” He frowns, he likes talking about his Dad just about as much as Tommy does, really. “I could use a break from it, maybe try and go back to college – I’d only been there a month when he died and I had to take over the Tiffany.” He shakes his head, changes topic. “Anyway, I’m sorry I was a jerk to you for a while there – I guess I was blaming you for things I don’t have. So, you should take this back,” he undoes the watch clasp, slides the thing off his wrist, and offers it to Michael, who’s still lying beside him on the blanket.

“Keep it,” Michael responds, waving away the attempt at returning it. “It’s yours.”

“I don’t… you can’t do that.”

“Not because I can go and get another one. I want you to have it.” He says, sitting up and taking the watch now, but only to slide it over Jake’s hand and to lock it into place again. 

Jake watches Michael carefully for a long moment before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the gold coin he’s always carrying. “Then I want you to have this.”

Michael’s not sure how to respond to that, but Jake doesn’t look like he’s willing to accept a ‘no’ so he settles on,“I don’t know what to say.”

Jake takes the opportunity to lean up and kiss him again. “Then don’t say anything.”

Michael smiles, kisses him back, and complies.


	2. Chapter 2

Things on Day 10 start out smoothly, and they’re nearly done with the raft by noon. All they have left to do is rig up some final touches and get their supplies on board. They’ll leave in the morning, at least that’s the plan. Jake and Tommy go off to gather up a few more vines so they can secure anything they bring, and that’s when it happens.

“Look!” Tommy shouts, spotting the three figures as they step off of the patched up inflatable raft and step onto the beach. “Hey!” He whistles loudly, “Hey! Over here! Hey!”

Jake tackles him to the ground, hand clamped over his mouth. “Shh!” He hisses, “Those are the pirates, see the boat?”

Tommy freezes, no longer struggling in Jake’s hold, quiet now. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he says and they move slowly, sneaking down the hill to where they left Michael sleeping on the raft.

Jake gets back to camp first, Tommy just behind him and they’re all over the raft in seconds, Michael rapidly drawn back to consciousness with the chaos building around him. “What’s going on? What’s wrong? One of you hurt?” He asks, the startled concern in his voice cutting through the lingering traces of sleep as he gets out of the way and starts dragging the raft out to sea.

“We're fine,” Jake answers quickly, eyes scanning a rapid back and forth for any sign of the pirates. Why are they doing this? There’s no way they can outrun either of those boats on a wooden raft, how can they escape? They should just go and hide in the caves… Why hadn’t they planned for this? “But the pirates are here. We need to move.”

“How’d they find us?” Michael asks, and it is a very good question. It is, however, possible that they haven’t actually been found – but the pirates will eventually spot their shelter or their raft and then they’ll be in trouble.

“No idea. They must really want you to still be looking,” Jake says, but only once they’re far enough out and Tommy and Michael are up on the raft and messing with the sail. Michael hauls him aboard and it’s just about then that the inflatable appears in the distance, heading straight for them. They try, they do, really, but there’s only so much speed a bunch of wood can manage in getting out to sea and it is no match for a fueled speedboat. The pirates are on them within minutes.

“Look out!” Jake shouts, the first to spot the metallic glint of the gun that the girl pulls on them. At first he thinks it’s only a flare gun, meant to torch the sail or something, but she fires a shot that goes wide, missing them, and that is definitely not a flare gun. He shoves Tommy overboard before the kid can even get his life-vest on and he’s pushing Michael off next. Jake’s about to follow when the gun fires again, a single, loud, booming shot, and at first he doesn’t even feel it, because he hits the cool water just a nanosecond later but then there’s a searing pain pulsing through his shoulder and red streaking the water around him. He attempts to tread in place but the pain makes his vision blur and his stomach roll. No way can he swim like this.

“Jake!” Michael’s there, next to him, keeping him above water. It’s obvious he’s seen the blood, hands pressed over the entry and exit wounds despite the cringing and cursing it elicits from the younger man. “Jake, come on, we have to get to the cave! You can make it!”

Jake shakes his head and Tommy’s pulling at Michael because the pirates are almost there and they need to go. “I can’t. Go. Get out of here.”

Michael surges forward then, kisses him quick in a move that seems to surprise Tommy but does not phase his attempts to get his cousin to move. “I’ll come back for you,” he tells Jake, even though it’s in direct contradiction to the things they promised last night. With that, they dive for the lobster cave, where they can hide out until the coast is clear.

The pirates haul him into the boat by his injured shoulder, clearly not in a merciful mood. The girl who shot him sends her colleague down to find Tommy and Michael, but he resurfaces without results. “You won’t get them,” Jake bites out, holding pressure on the gunshot wound.

“We’ll see about that,” she snaps back at him. They sit there for nearly an hour, but Michael and Tommy do not reappear and eventually they are forced to return to the leader, Frakes, without their target and with only Jake as a bargaining chip.

Frakes is not at all happy, but he seems appeased when they tell him about the nature of his and Michael’s relationship. Prior to that reveal, Frakes had been talking about killing him – why would they need the boat captain, some useless, purposeless sea rat? Terrible leverage – so Michael’s kiss had probably saved his life. At least for now. He seems confident and at ease when he says, “He’ll be back.”

“What makes you think so?”

“He’ll come running when he hears his pretty boy screaming in pain, I think.” Frakes says, voice level and calm even as he lets his fingers curl into the wound on his shoulder. Jake writhes, but bites his tongue to keep himself quiet while he glares daggers at the sadistic pirate, unwilling to give in to the torture. Frakes just laughs, pulls away and issues commands to his underlings. “Keep an eye out for the others and patch the kid up, we don’t need him dying before we get our mark.”

“On it, boss.”

***

They’re back on the island and dry, up on the rock ledges and out of sight in the shadows of the setting sun. Michael’s got binoculars clutched in his hands, watching the boat carefully as the blonde guy applies a crude bandage to Jake’s shoulder.

“What’re we gonna do, Michael?” Tommy asks quietly.

Michael has no idea what to do. Jake had been the planner for their time spent here, had been the one to know how to build the camp, find food, and construct the raft. Michael had just been following his lead. He thinks of last night on the beach, wondering how things could have gone so badly so quickly when life on the island had so recently been relatively calm and peaceful and fantastic. He thinks of their conversation and his hand goes to the coin still tucked safely in his pocket. “I have an idea. But we’ve got some work to do.”

“Alright,” Tommy agrees, “let’s go.”

***

Jake spends the night tied to a table below deck, under guard. The blonde guy, Dante, seems especially displeased with having to deal with a captive and seems to take pleasure in bumping or otherwise irritating his injured shoulder at every given opportunity. They untie him early the next morning, once the girl, Jonas, has spotted Michael pacing the shoreline and raised the alarm.

By that point, Jake’s bordering on passed out from the agonizing pain, but within minutes, they’re manhandling him into the back of the inflatable with no concern for his arm. Frakes mumbles a cocky, “Told you so,” as they speed off toward the beach.

They shove him out of the boat, and Dante quickly gets an arm around his neck and leaves his other hand lingering over the shoulder wound should he be entertaining any ideas of escape.

“You okay, Jake?” Is Michael’s first question, before Frakes can make any comments. Jake stays silent, as he's fairly certain that if he actually opens his mouth he’ll let out nothing other than a sharp scream, so he nods instead, which is far from a pain-free alternative.

“Where’s the kid?”

“Someplace safe. That’s not important. What is important is that I have a deal for you.”

“Oh,” Frakes grins, laughing again, “Guys, you hear that? He’s got a deal for us. What kind of deal might that be?”

Michael glares, but his eyes soften every time they land on Jake’s abused figure. “You seem like a financially motivated individual so let’s look at the bottom line here, yeah? You want me because you think I’m worth a lot of money.” Frakes inserts a sarcastically witty response about psychics, but Michael is unfazed. “I’m not sure my family would pay a dime for me right now, but what if I could get you ten to fifteen million in gold coins? Would that be a big enough score to get you to leave us alone?”

Frakes and the others seem intrigued. “Gold?” Michael offers him Jake’s gold coin and after a quick inspection, he nods. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“I found a whole ton of them right here on this island.” Michael’s voice has gone cold and steely, spitting words and leaving no leeway for compromise in his statements. “You won’t see another piece unless you let Jake go right now.”

Frakes is not happy with the ultimatum. He pulls his gun, aims it right at Michael’s head but he doesn’t even blink. Jake, however, feels his heart drop into his stomach at the sight. “Or I could just kill you right here, right now. You and your pretty boy. I’ll kill him first, of course, make you watch, and then we’ll see if you’re still disinclined to show us where the gold is.”

Michael tenses at the threat, but doesn’t give. “I won’t tell you. Not until I know Jake and Tommy are safe. You kill them and I have no reason to tell you anything. They don’t know where it is and you’ll never find it on your own.” It’s not the best argument in the world but it’s the only one he’s got since he’s selling the guy on non-existent gold, so when the gun drops a tense few seconds later, Michael is beyond relieved that it worked.

“Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to let your pretty boy here go and you’re going to show us the gold. If it’s what you say it is, then I don’t need to waste any more of my time with you lot.”

“You have to swear to let us go. I want your word.” Michael orders, though Jake has no idea why he thinks the word of a pirate counts for anything at all. He tries to protest but a hand curls into his shoulder and it takes all of his concentration not to fall over screaming.

Frakes seems similarly unconcerned with swearing to that. “Fine, I promise. As a gentleman, you have my word.” Personally, ‘gentle’ is not a word that Jake would associate with the pirate.

“Good,” Michael says, and then his attention’s on Jake. “Just walk along the beach, okay?”

Jake nods, hopes he can manage that. It starts out badly when Dante shoves him away and he immediately crashes to his knees in the sand. His shoulder throbs with pain – after all, the pirates hadn’t been kind enough to give him any pain medication – and he spends a long moment struggling to his feet. Michael tries to get to him, but Frakes waves his gun around threateningly and starts giving orders again, ones that end with “Let’s go, already. Now!”

Finally, he struggles to his feet and starts a slow, painful walk along the beach, in the opposite direction from their camp. Probably a good call, that. His vision blurs in and out of focus every once in a while when the pain gets to be too much and he has to stop a few times and lean against whatever he can find before gravity gets the better of him.

“Jake?” A voice calls out from the tree line.

“Tommy?” He calls back, stumbling his way toward the sound. The kid meets him half way, letting Jake settle an arm around his shoulder and taking some of his weight.

“You don’t look good.” Tommy says, also clearly worried as he helps him along. He sits Jake down a good ways into the woods, in a clearing where he’s got some supplies from camp that he and Michael must’ve grabbed and stowed. He finds a first-aid kit amongst the supplies and digs out some pain pills, which Jake swallows down eagerly with some water.

Tommy can’t do much with the wound itself, but he makes up a pretty basic sling out of a shredded t-shirt and that bit of stabilization seems to help a little. It’s Jake’s left arm so at least he’s not entirely sidelined, which is good, because they need him to finish this. “We have to get the boat,” Tommy tells him. “They sent the blonde guy back to guard it, so we only have to deal with him. But, we have to hurry. Think you’re up to it?”

Jake nods, even though he’s not sure of the answer. It’s not like there’s another option.

***

“How much farther?” Frakes snaps at him as they weave through overgrowth and underbrush and by creeping creatures that slither and skitter past them silently.

“Just up here,” Michael assures him. He hopes Jake’s in good enough shape to deal with the boat, if not they’re all in serious trouble. He can see the cave now, so close.

Frakes and Jonas stop and argue for a moment – he hears words like ‘death cave’ and ‘cannibals’ and ‘shrunken heads’ – but eventually they both follow him in. That’s another major relief; the plan would have been majorly compromised if they both didn’t come in. “Where is it?” Frakes questions, clearly impatient.

“Around the corner up there,” he says, backing off and letting them go ahead, eyeing the rope carefully. This had better work.

“Around where?” Frakes questions, his voice now heavily laced with suspicion, but it’s too late. Now they’re in position. He pulls hard on the rope, dropping the skulls right in front of them and sending them tumbling backwards in surprise. She falls straight into the pit, but Frakes manages to stay somewhat upright. Michael shoves at him, tries to flip him down the drop, but it’s still not enough, he’s still got a hold on the ledge. “I’ll get you!” Frakes shouts, hands clawing for purchase on the loose soil and rock.

Michael takes the time to grab up Jake’s gold coin before he splits, dodging past grabbing hands that manage to trip him up. He’s got skinned up knees as a result, but he’s still out of the cave before Frakes is on his feet.

***

Getting out to the boat is probably the most painful thing Jake has ever experienced. The cool water helps a little, chilling his shoulder, but not entirely masking the throbbing, pulsing soreness that accompanies a bullet wound. They have to stay mostly submerged under clumps of seaweed and he’s holding onto Tommy as much as he can without drowning the kid, so it’s fairly slow going. Tommy follows his directions on which of the inflatable’s wires to cut, the one that kills the motor, and then the boy carefully unties the thing, letting it float off a ways. Tommy has to help him lever himself aboard the boat, and he stays quiet and close behind him as they wait for the pirate to emerge from below deck.

Admittedly, Tommy does most of the work in knocking Dante overboard, but that’s mostly because the guy gets another hit in against his messed up shoulder after Jake launches himself at the man and he ends up sprawled on the ground and clutching at the wound. He hears a splash and then Tommy’s helping him up, getting him to the wheel. He guns the engine into life, putting distance between them and the irate pirate as quickly as possible.

“Okay, okay, we’re good. The rest is up to Michael.” Tommy says, working hard to keep Jake calm and stable for as long as he can. “We’ll get out of here.”

***

Michael runs and runs and runs, trips more than once, but manages to stay a healthy distance away from his pursuer and the gun that comes with him. He finally, finally makes it to the shoreline, sees Jake and Tommy safely on the boat, but he can’t risk the swim. Not with Frakes so close. He waves them off, hoping Jake is better at keeping promises than he is, and motions for them to get away, to leave him behind.

“Everest!” He hears the shouted call, just barely, carried on the wind and coupled with the hand motions Tommy offers, he figures it out well enough. Frakes is almost on him now, but still not close enough for a clear shot, so he runs back into the trees.

***

“He made me promise to get you out of here,” Jake says, as he heads toward the island’s high point, “but he promised that, too. There’s no way we’re leaving unless we’re all on the boat.”

Tommy nods in agreement – he’d been planning on arguing if Jake had opposed a plan to get Michael out no matter what – and so they wait a ways off from the base of the cliff.

“So, when did this thing between you and Michael start?” He asks, mostly to keep Jake awake and talking – Michael already told him the answer. “Before they grabbed you? Or was it then?”

Jake’s thrown by the question, but he mumbles out an answer all the same, as a flush fills his face. “Ugh, it started a few nights ago, really. And that’s probably all it’ll be – Michael didn’t seem to think his Dad would take the news that he was interested in guys all that well and he didn’t give me any indication of whether or not he’d want to keep it going once we’re out of here, so…” He’s already resigned himself to that, really, he’s been prepared for that from the start. It’s not that he wants it to end, just that he’s not expecting otherwise – it’ll hurt less. Maybe.

Tommy doesn’t seem as convinced about the inevitable end to whatever relationship exists between his cousin and Jake. “Yeah, well. You weren’t stuck in the cave with him for an hour while he freaked out about how badly you were hurt. Or all night when he wouldn’t stop watching the boat – he was convinced they were just going to toss you to the sharks. If you’d heard him, you would not be saying that.”

“What all did he say?” Jake asks, suitably curious as to what would make Tommy so sure of that.

But the kid is pointing up at the cliffs now, just as Michael comes into view. “You’ll have to ask him yourself,” he says, and urges Jake to get the boat closer.

***

Michael runs. He runs and jumps and sprints and is utterly convinced he’s going to be shot in the back as each second passes by. He buys himself a little time by leaping over the muddy pit, having already learned that lesson. Frakes goes in and that gives him enough of a head start to get to the top of the cliffs.

But then he’s staring down at the rough, churning, blue water, at the rocks below. There’s the boat, as close as it can get with the rocks and the waves, but stilla pretty good distance away.

“Trust me.” Jake had said. “Trust me.”

Frakes is catching up.

He jumps.

And falls.

And falls.

And falls.

And…

Finally, water, icy cool on his too warm skin, surrounds him and the shock of hitting is enough to stun him for a second and there’s still the ever present worry over getting shot, but he’s swimming by then, heading toward the boat and Tommy and Jake.

***

Tommy helps an exhausted Michael climb aboard some few minutes later. “You’re alright!” He says, and then pulls him into a hug.

Jake approaches slowly, after he kills the engine. Michael’s grinning like an idiot, but so is Jake so it doesn’t really matter, he supposes. “Hey, tough guy, we did it, huh?” Michael says and before Jake can really respond, Michael’s pulling him in for a hug, too, careful of his shoulder.

Jake gets out a shaky, “yeah,” in response and now that the adrenaline involved in fearing for Michael’s safety and getting the boat has left him, he feels like he might just pass out.

“You okay?” Michael asks, and honestly, the hold he’s got on him is probably the only thing keeping Jake standing right now. “You don’t look so good, man.”

“Just get me back to the wheel so I can radio in and get us moving.” Jake requests, and Michael complies. He puts in the call for help to Island Patrol, glad to get an immediate response.They’re only a few hours out of port, and an ambulance will be waiting at the docks. They’ll be sending people out to pick up the pirate scum, as well. Jake aims the boat in the general direction of civilization and collapses where he stands.


	3. Chapter 3

When he comes to, there are hands on him, pulling and moving him poking at his shoulder and stabbing at his arm with something sharp and just what the hell is going on? He’s convinced he’s back at the mercy of the pirates, not that they had much of that to begin with. But he can hear Michael nearby, talking, shouting, arguing, something.

“Jake,” he hears, finally, and it’s Michael’s voice close and quiet and soothing as he struggles to squirm away from the hands that keep messing with his shoulder. “Jake, it’s okay. They’re trying to help you, so you can go to the hospital and get fixed up. It’ll be okay.”

 

Eyes open and the world spins around him but then it slowly comes into bleary focus. They’re docked and he’s not quite sure how they got there, but he’s too exhausted and nauseous to really care all that much. He focuses on Michael, sitting beside him, and ignores the paramedics as they bustle about around him, setting him up to be moved off of the boat and into a waiting ambulance. “Stay?” He asks, voice rough and hoarse.

“I'm not going anywhere,” Michael assures him and when Jake catches hold of his hand he offers a light squeeze, and doesn’t let go.

***

It doesn’t take long to get to the hospital, but they’ve chosen an inopportune moment to arrive. The place is crowded, crawling with people from a fairly large-scale traffic accident that’s got the Emergency Department buzzing with chaotic activity.

As a result, they’re immediately split up. Tommy and Michael are sent off to be quickly cleared for any negative side-effects of their time spent on the island, whilst Jake is rushed off for x-rays and surgery to fix up his shoulder.

Michael puts up a fight, balks at the idea of being checked out when there is absolutely nothing wrong with him sans a couple of skinned up knees from his fall in the cave, and he only grudgingly relents when the doctors tell him it’ll be a while before Jake’s out of surgery and up for any visitors. So he sits there, lets the doctors and nurses poke and prod at him and he does whatever they want him to do so he can prove to them as quickly as possible that there’s no reason to keep him away from Jake any longer than necessary.

Finally, nearly three hours later - long after the ED staff finishes with them, someone comes to fetch them. “They’ll be moving your friend out of recovery shortly,” the doctor, a tall blonde woman who would typically have attracted Michael’s attention within nanoseconds, informs them calmly as she leads them to the room he’ll be brought to.

“Thanks,” Michael says. “Is he okay?”

“It was just a flesh wound, really, but he lost a good bit of blood and the potential for infection is still fairly high given the length of time between the shooting and his arrival here, as well as the unsterile conditions of the island,” she explains. “If there’s no sign of infection by tonight, though, he should be able to be released sometime tomorrow. We’re giving him blood and IV fluids alongside the painkillers now that he’s stable, too.”

“So he’ll be alright?” Tommy asks, sounding hopeful.

“Looks that way,” she says. “He should be down in a few minutes. He’ll be asleep for a while yet, but try to keep him calm when he wakes up – sometimes patients are a little distressed after being under anesthesia.”

She takes her leave after that, but Michael barely notices. He stands at the door, eyes scanning the hallways for signs of Jake’s arrival. He only has to wait a few short moments before two orderlies appear, pushing the bed on which Jake lays, silent and still. They transfer him to the bed in the room, get him situated and offer their well-wishes as they leave again.

“He’s not as pale looking as he was on the boat,” Tommy says, trying to break the silence.

Michael just stands there and stares. He takes in the wide array of tubes and wires and monitors presently tracking Jake's vitals but then opts to focus solely on the fact that he’s still breathing as opposed to focusing on the stark white bandage on Jake’s shoulder. “Yeah, he looks better,” he agrees, but he won’t stop worrying until Jake’s awake and released.

***

Jake wakes up back on the island.

“I found a whole ton of them right here on this island.” Michael’s saying, voice level and solid as steel as he argues his case. “You won’t see another piece unless you let Jake go right now.”

Just as before, when they did this before and Jake is convinced they’ve done this before, Frakes is not amused. He pulls his gun, aims it right at Michael’s head but Michael – stupid, stupid, Michael – doesn’t even blink in response to the threat. Jake can’t move – there’s an arm curled around his neck and another poised over his shoulder injury, except that there isn’t. The other pirates aren’t there, just Frakes and Michael talking. “Or I could just kill you right here, right now. You and your pretty boy. I’ll kill him first, of course, make you watch, and then we’ll see if you’re still disinclined to show us where the gold is.”

“Try it.” Michael says, deviates from the script that Jake knows. That’s not how it goes and he dreads where he thinks it might be going as a result. He tries to move, to get to Michael and stop this but he’s frozen and he can’t and –

The gun goes off.

Jake screams.

***

“Michael!” The sound of his name being shouted stirs him from the light sleep he’s fallen into at Jake’s bedside. Clearly, Jake’s awake, but then he doesn’t sound right and the way his name just came out, the sound like a mixture of torture and sadness and fear, tells him that he’s maybe not so awake after all. “Michael, no!”

“Jake!” He shouts back, a hand shaking him lightly to bring him back to the realm of the conscious. “Wake up, Jake, it’s alright.”

Jake starts awake, really awake this time not the awake he thought he was before, and the first thing he sees is Michael, hovering over him and looking considerably worried but definitely not dead. He asks a question, but Jake has no idea what it was and the only thing he can think to do in the aftermath of that nightmare is reach out and hope that whatever this thing is between them wasn’t as limited to the island as he feared it was because he needs this.

He’s beyond relieved when Michael grabs his hand, holding tightly, thumb moving over his skin in slow, rhythmic circles that slowly calm him down. “You’re okay,” Michael says quietly, leaning over to offer a quick kiss that further reassures Jake that Michael’s not giving this up as easily as he’d anticipated. A second, slightly longer kiss follows before Michael seems satisfied that he’s okay and sits back down.

“You know,” Jake croaks, his voice barely audible and his throat dry from the anesthesia. Michael offers him a few sips of water and he coughs his way back to a rough approximation of his normal voice. “That’s the only reason I’m alive right now.”

“What?”

“If you hadn’t kissed me in front of the pirates, they would have killed me. They’d have shot me again and thrown me to the sharks, probably. So thanks for that.” Jake says, offering a small grin as he forces the gruesome details of the nightmare away.

“Hmm, I guess I should kiss you more often, then. You know, just in case,” Michael answers, doing just that. He’s wary of doing anything that might possibly run this risk of jarring Jake’s shoulder, but the combination of blood, IV fluids, antibiotics, pain medication and whatever else they have him hooked up to seems to have done wonders for him. The kiss lasts probably a little longer than it really should and the rhythmic beep-beep-beep-beep of one of the plethora of monitors speeds up a bit in response to the activity. “We should stop before the nurses come investigating and kick me out of here for not keeping you calm.”

It’s then that Tommy bursts into the room, fresh off of a lengthy phone call with his mother. “Oh, hey Jake,” he starts, but takes in the sight of Michael looming over Jake’s form and comes to the correct conclusions. “Or I can come back later…”

“No, it’s okay, Tommy,” Michael laughs, sitting back once more, but keeping his hold on Jake’s hand.

“How’s the shoulder?” Tommy asks, perching on the edge of Jake’s hospital bed once he’s satisfied that they’re not going to start making out again.

“Surprisingly not sore, but I’m guessing that’s due to the morphine.” He replies, nodding to one of the various bags of IV fluids he’s presently attached to.

“Any news from your Mom?” Michael questions, knowing that Tommy’s family, as well as his own, should be showing up at some point in the near future.

“Yeah, she's coming and so is your Dad; they'll be here tomorrow afternoon. Their flight leaves in a few hours.” He relates the information he learned over the phone and wonders how Michael will deal with introducing Jake to his father. “I warned them that we might still be here, if Jake doesn’t get released before then.”

“Hopefully we’ll be out of here by then,” Michael says, as a lengthier stay would not mean anything good for Jake.

***

Sometime later, Tommy’s left them alone again, this time to raid the cafeteria for things that were not available on the island – funded by the wallet the police happened upon when searching the pirate’s boat, they’d returned it to Michael as soon as possible. The doctors have been by, have given Jake a relatively clean bill of health, all things considered, and promised to discharge him in the morning, barring any unexpected complications.

Things are going well.

Jake does fine throughout the night, wakes with only one nightmare. Michael sleeps hunched over the side of the bed, keeps hold of Jake’s good hand and Tommy sleeps sprawled across a chair on the other side of the room.

He’s released early the next morning with supplies to change his bandage, a sling, pain medication, antibiotics, and orders to take it easy. The last of the morphine still has him residually sleepy, and they don’t really have anywhere else to go, so Michael finds them a hotel and checks them in. The hotel is pretty crowded though, only has a couple of rooms available, and the one they land only has a queen bed and a sofa. They take it anyway.

They spend a good bit of time getting cleaned up. Tommy gets the shower first, while Michael runs to a shop down the street to buy them all some fresh clothes. Upon his return, he finds Jake in the process of disobeying the doctor’s discharge instructions, attempting to climb into the shower and refusing all help.

“Whoa, whoa,” Michael says, slipping into the surprisingly spacious bathroom, after he leaves Tommy to get changed and with orders to let him handle Jake. “Not so fast, there, buddy.” He stops Jake’s forward progress easily enough and then moves to mess with the shower settings until the bathtub is filling up instead. “No showers. Gotta keep the stitches dry. And you’re lucky you didn’t break any of them getting undressed on your own.” By the time he’s finished chiding Jake for his stubbornness, the tub is full and he attempts to aid Jake in climbing in.

“I can do it myself,” he protests, and Michael backs off obligingly. Five seconds of movement result in an impressive wince and some rather colorful curses before he gives up and Michael’s by his side again. “Maybe not so much,” he admits as he relaxes, leaning back as much as he can as the perfectly warm water surrounds him.

Michael drops to his knees beside the tub, after grabbing up a courtesy cup from the bathroom sink. “Tilt your head back, if it doesn’t hurt too much,” Michael says and Jake complies without argument this time. He uses the cup to pour water over his head until his hair is sufficiently damp, but he’s careful not get the bandage on Jake’s shoulder wet. From there he pours a liberal amount of the contents from the hotel-sized shampoo bottle into his hand. He drags his hands slowly through Jake’s hair as he lathers in the shampoo, using his fingers to massage his scalp lightly, drawing a pleased groan from Jake as he leans into the touch.

He’s in the process of rinsing the soapy lather away when Jake speaks up. “What are you going to tell your Dad?” He asks, the question comes out of nowhere, but he wants the answer. Wants to know where exactly this is going before he lets himself get any further entangled in it. The question, however, makes Michael freeze, his hands still in Jake’s hair.

“I, ugh,” Michael starts, faltering like he hasn’t done since Jake first confronted him about the staring that started all of this. “What do you mean?”

Jake turns as much as he can, looking back at Michael as the hands fall away, determined to get an answer even though he knows he might not like the one he gets. "About this. Us, whatever it is that we are. What do you want from me?”

Michael’s silent for a long moment and Jake is pretty much convinced that he’s maybe possibly just going to bolt and forget all about this. He has no idea where Michael stands on this at all. There hasn’t been a whole lot of time for talking and maybe this isn’t the time either but he doesn’t want to be going in blind for whatever’s going to happen when Michael’s Dad shows up. He almost retracts his question, almost lets it slide, but just as he’s about to shrug it off as sleeplessness or the drugs talking, Michael snaps out of his panic. “I don’t know exactly what I’m telling my Dad yet, I haven’t really thought about it with everything that’s been going on, but I’m telling him that I want this, you,” he admits, a nervous expression flits across his face, but Jake still catches it.“As long as you do, too.”

Jake is surprised by the answer, but at least he knows his own response. It’s absolutely ridiculous that he’s so invested in this relationship already, after only five days, but he is and he has no intention of giving up on it without a fight, either. “I want this, too, Michael.”

“Good,” Michael says, pressing kisses along Jake’s good shoulder and trailing up to his neck and jawline before kissing him quickly on the lips. “Glad to hear it,” he adds as he leans back to resume rinsing the soap from Jake’s hair so they can finish this and get some rest before his and Tommy’s parents show up.

“Me, too,” Jake answers, glad that they’ve at least sorted some of the chaos out between them.


	4. Chapter 4

Jake’s out of the tub a short while later and Michael helps him dry off and get into fresh clothes before he starts on his own quick shower. Before long, they emerge from the bathroom to find Tommy passed out on the couch, with the muted sounds of the television playing reruns of some nondescript show that no one in the room is interested in watching.

Michael, meanwhile, helps get Jake settled on the bed. It seems so weird having a bed again, blankets and pillows – it has been less than two weeks since they’d had those things available, but it still seems bizarre having them back again. He gets Jake to take a dose of his medicines and drink a good bit of water before he starts drifting off again.

“Try and get some rest, Jake,” he says softly, as he adjusts the pillow presently cushioning Jake’s bandaged shoulder.

“You should, too,” Jake responds, voice sleep-slurred and thick. He pulls at the covers on his right side, lifting them so Michael can join him. “C’mon, bed’s big enough.”

Michael could refuse, but that’s the last thing he wants to do when he’s not sure how his father is going to react to all of this, so he obliges, climbs under the blankets beside Jake and shifts closer than he probably expected. They shift, so Jake’s pretty much leaning against him, and they’re out within minutes.

***

Jake starts awake again just an hour later, wincing when the sharp movement jostles his shoulder. Another nightmare, another bullet fired from Frakes’ gun, this one hitting Michael when he’s running on the beach, when Jake and Tommy were out on the boat and way too far away to stop it. These nightmares are ridiculous – Michael wasn’t hurt, isn’t dead. He’s right here.

Michael stirs beside him, a hand moving on Jake’s good arm, gently pulling him back down. They’ve moved even closer together in their sleep, Michael’s arms carefully curled around Jake's chest and his head buried against Michael’s neck.

“What are you dreaming about that involves shouting at me not to do things?” He asks curiously, and obviously Jake had been talking in his sleep again. “Hm?”

Jake doesn’t want to talk about his nightmares, he really doesn’t. But he finds himself answering the question all the same. “You keep getting shot. When you were selling Frakes on the gold, when you were running, when you jumped, when I got shot, take your pick. You just keep getting shot. And not nice, easy to repair shoulder wounds, either.”

Michael’s silent, surprised maybe. He’d probably thought they’d been more about Jake’s time spent with the pirates as opposed to the plethora of what if’s and maybe’s and could’ve been’s that weren't. “But I wasn’t.” He says quietly. “I’m fine, you’re going to be fine, Tommy’s fine. The pirates are in jail. Everything worked out.”

“I know that; can you please explain that to my subconscious, because I don’t think it’s gotten the memo yet.”

Michael laughs lightly, ducks his head to kiss Jake – he rather enjoys kissing Jake as much as humanly possible – and then grins down at him. “Mm. Can I relay the message this way? Since I’m kissing you I am clearly not dead so…” Another kiss and then another and another and then the door opens with the quiet beep of a keycard they’d left at the front desk and the big, overhead light flicks on and then Michael’s Dad and Tommy’s Mom are there and clearly quite surprised by what they’ve walked in on.

There are about five seconds of absolute silence in which nobody moves and nobody speaks.

Then it’s, “What the hell is going on in here!?” The loud, booming voice of his father demands, shocked to see his son in bed with another man, even fully clothed as they presently are. He gestures wildly with his hands from the meager distance between Jake and Michael and then settles for glaring intently.

Tommy’s mother, meanwhile, has spotted her son sleeping soundly on the couch. He’s stirring now, hard not to when Mr. Woods is shouting up a storm. He rolls his eyes when he spots Michael and Jake – he’d figured as much would happen – but then his Mom’s pulling him up off the couch. At first he thinks it’s for a hug, which it kind of is, but then she’s pulling him out of the room as if something improper is going on and she doesn’t want him exposed to it.

“An answer. Now.” Mr. Woods booms again, louder this time since his first attempt received no response.

Jake’s kind of worried by how tense Michael is beside him. He’d stood, unwavering, when Frakes put a gun to his head, he’d jumped off a cliff with the pissed off pirate on his heels, but two minutes with his father terrifies him into shaking where he sits?

“Uh, Dad,” Michael starts, voice quiet and unusually timid. “This is, ugh, Jake Hunter. He was the captain of our boat. He saved us from the pirates, and he got shot protecting me and…” and we’re together, he wants to add, but the words stick in his throat.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Woods,” Jake tries. He’d offer a hand but one of them would hurt to move and Michael’s gripping the other one like it’s a lifeline.

Mr. Woods just keeps up his piercing scowl, arms folded across his chest as he waits for an explanation that has yet to come. “Still haven’t heard a reason for this.” He growls.

Michael tries again, focuses on Jake’s hand curled around his and how right it felt to sleep with Jake in his arms and how well they fit together and the way it felt to hear Jake say he wanted this, too, and the panic when he thought Jake was seriously hurt and the fear when he thought the pirates might make him even more seriously hurt. He takes all of that and then he tries to explain it all to his father. “Ugh, Jake and I, we… we’re together, Dad.” He gets the hardest part out and then he’s just talking. “It happened while we were on the island and I didn’t really know that I was interested in guys at all, but at the very least I like Jake, a lot, and I’m sorry, Dad, but this is who I am and I’ll pay you back what I owe you and everything and if you’re pissed about this, I’m sorry, but I’m not giving this up. Even if it means you cut me off or disown me or whatever, I’ll find a way to manage.”

“Don’t do that,” Jake says quietly, and both the older and younger Woods’ turn to face him. “Don’t cut yourself off from your Dad. If… someday you’ll regret doing that and you might not be able to fix it, then. I lost my Dad, and we were close - had to be, stuck on the boat like we were - but I can’t even imagine how bad things would’ve been if we were fighting when he died.”

His father starts to say something, but Michael gets his voice in first. “If he can’t accept this, then there’s nothing I can do about it,” he says, shifting away from Jake in response to his suggestion. He gets that Jake’s only trying to help but he’s not giving into his father’s wishes on the matter, whatever they may be. “I won’t pretend to be whatever he wants me to be, it’s not worth it. I’d rather be on my own, if that’s the case.”

By that point, Michael’s off the bed and standing and Jake doesn’t know how to react to that separation at all.

***

“Mom, relax!” Tommy implores, as he watches her pace up and down the length of the hallway outside of the hotel room. “They were only kissing. It’s not like they haven’t been doing that for the last few days.”

She stops. “This has been going on? Why with you around?”

He actually laughs. “We were stuck on an island. Did you want them to send me to my room? I didn’t even know about it until the pirates…” he trails off, not sure he wants to explain the shooting and the kidnapping and the rescue and the guns right now. Maybe let Michael or Jake handle relaying that part of the story. “Until Jake got hurt and Michael freaked out about it. You know, they kind of hated each other at first? I don’t know how it changed, but it did.”

“I thought Michael had invited some girl along for this trip, and now he’s involved with this… Jake?”

“He was the Captain of the boat. He sunk it to save us and kept us alive on the island and he was protecting Michael and me when the pirates hurt him. He’s a good guy, Mom, he’s a friend and this isn’t fair to either him or Michael.”

Her anger kind of deflates then. He is much more appraised of the situation than she is, and despite being a kid, she seems willing to listen to reason on this matter. “I still don’t approve of them messing around in bed in front of you.”

“They were only kissing! Jake probably had another nightmare, at least that’s how Michael’s been calming him down afterward,” he explains, vaguely recalling more of Jake’s mumbling. “Give them a break, Michael’s already terrified about telling his Dad…”

“Alright,” she relents. “I give up.”

He grins. “Can you maybe try to calm Uncle Glen down a little?”

She nods, turns back to the door. “Let’s see what we can do.”

***

“Now hold on a minute,” Mr. Woods says, finally getting a word into the conversation. “Where is this coming from, Michael? Please, explain this to me because last time I checked I was yelling at you about inviting Roxanne to meet you here. Where did that plan go and how did it turn into… into this?”

Michael seems surprised by the lack of yelling and the attempts to understand. Perhaps he underestimated his father in all of this. “I don’t know, Dad. It just did. I told Roxanne not to come after the pirate’s pickpocketed me and to be honest, I’d been thinking about doing that even before I realized I’d lost my wallet. This thing with Jake… I don’t know, it just started and it’s… I can’t explain it.”

Jake remains quiet, afraid that whatever he says will make the situation worse and push Michael further away.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t understand how you went from Roxanne to him, it’s just not-“

He cuts himself off when the door opens and Tommy and his mother reappear. “Glen, let’s give them a break and let everyone cool off for a bit,” Jules says, “We’re all tired and hungry. Why don’t we all meet downstairs and discuss this over dinner after everybody gets some rest? I know I’m seriously jetlagged.”

Mr. Woods looks like he wants to protest, to keep the argument up until he gets the answers that sufficiently explain Michael’s bizarre behavior, but instead he heaves a heavy sigh and shakes his head. “Alright. Alright, fine.” He agrees, could probably use a reprieve from the jet lag, himself. He nods to a couple of suitcases that were left by the door in the chaos of their arrival. “We brought some clothes for you and Tommy, Michael. I’m sure there are some things in there that Jake can wear. Meet us downstairs in a few hours – we’ll finish discussing this, then.”

Michael nods, and Mr. Woods leaves the room and heads for one he booked for himself. Tommy’s mother has another room and she drags Tommy off with her so that they can start catching up.

And then they’re alone.

***

“So,” Jake says slowly, watching Michael pace the length of the room like a caged animal. “That went well.” More pacing, back and forth and back again until Jake climbs out of bed to put a stop to the incessant motion himself, planting himself in Michael’s path. “Michael?”

He comes up short just in front of Jake, hands darting out to steady him even though he’s stable where he stands. “Sorry. Just… just trying to figure out how I can make him understand. I don’t want to break contact with my Dad, but I can’t let him win on this or he’ll never back off.”

Jake is completely willing to accept that Michael knows his father and his likely reactions well enough to predict how they’ll affect later situations, and apparently, Michael isn’t mad at him for suggesting he stay civil with his father, so he opts not to press that issue any further. Michael’s arms curl around him carefully, resting just below the sling supporting his arm, pulling him in as close as possible.

“How can this work?” He asks, as reality starts crashing down around them, mumbling out ideas as they come to him. On the island, nothing had really mattered outside of avoiding the pirates and getting back to civilization. Now they have disgruntled parents and the impending distance of nearly 7,500 miles to contend with if they want to keep this thing between them going. What options do they even have? He could move to Sydney? Jake could move to California? Some sort of compromise between the two? What could he do in Australia and what could Jake do in California? Or, better yet, without a boat, and with an injured arm, what could Jake do here? “It’s crazy how much I want this to work.”

“If that’s the case, then I think we’re both crazy,” Jake counters, pulling Michael back toward the bed because getting shot and kidnapped and rescued and stitched up is a rather exhausting experience and he actually does want to get some more sleep before they have to go back to arguing with Michael’s Dad. “We’ll find a way, Michael. Figure something out. But lay down, just for a little while. I know you have to be tired, too.”

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees. Michael doesn’t expect to actually fall asleep with all of this barreling through his mind at a million miles an hour, but once he gets curled around Jake and under the blankets, he’s out like a light.


	5. Chapter 5

This time, Michael wakes up on the island.

He’s standing on the beach, the three pirates in front of him and Jake held prisoner by the blonde one, an arm curled around his neck to keep him from bolting. Words are coming out of his own mouth but he doesn’t know what they are, just that he sounds far more confident than he actually feels and all he can think is an endless loop of please don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt him…

Suddenly there’s a gun in his face and he doesn’t even really care because pointed at him means not pointed at Jake, and that? That’s good.

“Or I could just kill you right here, right now. You and your pretty boy. I’ll kill him first, of course, make you watch, and then we’ll see if you’re still disinclined to show us where the gold is.” The words seem familiar and he’s pretty sure this ends the way he wants it to, but even though he responds the same way he did before, something has to have gone sideways because Frakes levels his gun at Jake’s other shoulder and pulls the trigger without a second’s hesitation.

“No!” He shouts, rushing forward but he doesn’t get far because the blonde pirate somehow has a hold of him now, keeping his arms pinned behind his back and using Michael’s state of shock to get the upper-hand and bring him to his knees – easier to control him that way.

And Jake. Jake is calling out for him, his name sounds like it did when he was having his own nightmares – full of torture and sadness and fear. Jake’s down on his knees, too, just at eye level with Michael as the blood flows freely and more and more intensely from the fresh wound.

“Don’t! No! This isn’t what happens! No!” He shouts, pain tightening in his chest as he watches on. If there were gold here, he’d tell. He would. He knows it wouldn’t save them, wouldn’t save Jake because the pirates don’t have that kind of mercy in them, but maybe it would stop this torture and maybe they’d end it quickly, but now Frakes is taking aim at Jake again and oh, god, what now?

The gun is pointed at Jake’s stomach this time, the harbinger of a slow, painful death that Michael won’t be able to stop and one that will haunt his nightmares for all of forever because this has to be a nightmare, right? Then there’s the gunshot and there’s so much blood and Jake is straight out screaming as he goes down, something he’s refrained from doing thus far and Michael’s pretty sure he won’t even be able to forget that sound, no matter how much he’ll want to.

“Go on, then,” Frakes laughs at him and for some reason he signals the pirate to release him. He barrels toward Jake as fast as he can, barely gets off his knees at all before he falls to them again at Jake’s side and his hands are futilely pressing against the impressive hole in Jake’s stomach in a hopeless attempt to staunch the never ending flow of blood as he watches the life slowly start to leave Jake’s eyes. The watery sand around them is stained red with blood, spreading out more widely with each second that passes.

Michael’s crying by that point and he can’t even remember the last time he did that. Can’t draw forth one memory of breaking down like this since he was really little, but he is. He is and he’s clutching at Jake like that will help more than trying to put pressure on the wounds did, but he knows he doesn’t have much time left.

He says things that he can barely fathom, words like 'I love you,' and 'Don't do this, don't leave me,' and 'Jake, please stay,' but it's mostly just I love you over and over and over again. He flashes back to the daydreams he had when they first got to the island of being rescued by supermodels and the posed questions of believing in love at first sight that came with them and he knows that his answer is a resounding yes, now. Not for her, but for Jake.

Jake mumbles something barely coherent back at him, bloody fingers curling around Michael’s hand.

The gun echoes again, this time aimed at Jake’s head and -

***

The sharp sound of a knock on the hotel room door saves him from the impending ending of the horrendous nightmare.

“That was awful,” he mumbles quietly, arms curling tighter around Jake’s still soundly sleeping frame. He’s got his face buried in Jake’s hair, which is still just a little bit damp and smells like the generically clean hotel shampoo they’d used. One of his hands is pressed against Jake’s stomach, under his shirt, right where the bullet hit in the dream, but it’s dry and smooth, and not wet and slick with the freshly shed blood of a fatal wound. He nuzzles in closer against Jake’s neck, careful though, because this is the bad side, and presses a gentle kiss against the soft skin just above the bandage.

The knock at the door comes again – has someone been knocking this whole time? – and this time Jake blearily shifts to look back at him. “You gonna answer that?” He mumbles, eyes barely open at all.

“Apparently, it’s important,” Michael responds, and then he's climbing out of bed despite his strong desire to keep clinging to Jake until the memories of that nightmare completely disappear. For a second, he wonders if it’s his father, if they’ve overslept and missed the meeting for dinner, but he catches a glance of the clock on the bedside table as he stands up and they still have some time. He crosses the room and pulls the door open cautiously. "Yeah?"

"Mr. Woods?" An unfamiliar man asks of him. He's dressed in a nice, grey suit and clutching a briefcase, looks serious.

Michael, still a little jumpy from watching Frakes slay Jake right in front of him, narrows his eyes and responds, "who wants to know?"

The man smiles, offers a hand despite Michael's ominous answer. "Right, then. I'm Nathan Williams, a representative of several of the members of the Sydney Council. Many of them have heard of the encounter with the pirates and the role you, as well as Mr. Hunter and Mr. Biggs, had in turning them in. They've decided to offer the three of you a substantial reward for helping to bring the criminals to justice so swiftly and effectively," he says, pulling a check from the depths of his briefcase and handing it over, "To be split between the three of you."

Michael stares at the amount scribbled on the check in something akin to awe. This could be it - this could be the answer to his and Jake's worries. Even without Tommy's share of the reward, there's enough money that they could - he stops. Offers a hand as he mumbles something like "Whoa, thank you, so much. Glad we could help with your pirate problem, thank you." He's tempted to hug the man, but that might be pushing it. "Thank you," he says again, as Mr. Williams smiles and takes his leave.

Once he's got the door closed, a task that takes significantly more effort than usual given his present state of joyous shock, he moves back to Jake.

"What was that about?" Jake asks, still bordering on consciousness and not totally alert. Yet.

"That was a way for this to work," he answers, back on the bed and beside Jake again. "We can do this. It doesn't matter what my Dad says or anyone, really. We can do this. You and me."

Jake frowns in confusion, clearly perplexed by Michael's excitement. "What are you talking about?"

Michael produces the check, with a quick explanation of "for the three of us," and then he amends that with a slightly more hysterical, "we can give Tommy his share and then we can run. We can do whatever - get a boat and charter that, or you could go back to school like you wanted, or... Jake, we can run. They won't be able to stop us, it won't matter what my Dad wants, we can run."

"We don't need to run, Michael," Jake responds, though he, too, looks impressed by the numbers on the check. "We'll talk your Dad into being okay with this and we'll figure something out, but we don't need to do anything that extreme, okay?" He's pretty sure that Michael is only suggesting this because he's wary of actually having that conversation with his father and he doesn't want them giving up on each other without at least trying to work it out.

Michael's slow to answer, but eventually he nods. "Yeah, yeah, you're right." He sets the check aside and leans in to kiss Jake. "C'mon, I guess we should get changed for dinner, then," he says, grabbing Jake's good hand and levering him up and out of bed.


	6. Chapter 6

Overcast by a veil of awkward silence, the five of them are circled around the table at some fairly upscale restaurant just a few blocks from the hotel. The meal is almost over and while Michael has shared the good news about the reward with Tommy and the others, the issue of Michael and Jake's relationship has yet to come up. Perhaps intentionally.

That isn't a particularly good thing, either. Michael has only succeeded in pushing his food around his plate and the nervous bouncing of his leg and the anxious twitching of his fingers suggest the waiting isn't doing much to calm him down. Jake reaches out to cover Michael's hand to stop the compulsive movement. It works - Michael stills, looks to Jake in a desperate sort of pleading glance before he heaves a resigned sort of sigh and says, "Alright, let's talk about this."

"Yes," Mr. Woods replies, "let's. How serious can you be about this relationship, Michael? I've never seen you give up much of anything for any of the plethora of girls you've brought home, and now you want to get involved with someone who lives on the other side of the world?"

"Either Jake comes back to California with us or I stay here with him. I don't care which, but that alone should show you how much I want this to work out, how far I'm willing to go. With the reward money, we have enough to get by for a while, either way. I'm not asking for your permission on this, Dad. I'm 23, I don't need it. But I would like your approval."

Mr. Woods looks about as thrilled with Michael's ultimatum as Frakes had when he was bargaining Jake free - but as least he isn't armed. "Michael," he sighs, an irritated, parental sounding noise that's dripping with displeasure, "you've only known him for two weeks."

"And in that two weeks he risked his life to save both Tommy and myself," Michael defends, raising a valid point. "And in all fairness, eleven days on a deserted island feels a lot longer than eleven days."

"It really does," Tommy cuts in to add.

His father does not look amused by the comment, though Michael wasn't necessarily going for funny. "I understand that, I do, and I'm glad you all got out of this relatively unharmed. But, really, if either of you are considering moving to another country for a relationship that just started, what you are is naive, not serious."

This is not going well, Jake realizes. Mr. Woods has raised some valid points, but none of them changes the feeling of right that comes every time he looks at Michael, or talks to him, or kisses him or anything else. They might be jumping into this way too fast but then there's been a lot of impromptu jumping all around their relationship and that's all turned out okay, so why not this, too?

Michael's looking a little on the despondent side with the way this conversation is going, head hung low and all tensed up as he waits for another verbal blow from his father.

"Then give us a chance to prove you wrong," Jake suggests. "I want this, Michael wants this. If you're right, then we'll mess it up sooner or later, but if you're wrong..."

Jake doesn't quite miss the way Tommy elbows his mother into the conversation, slowly breaking her out of her silent observation as the conversation progressed. Now, she joins in. "Now, Glen, I recall that several family members were wary of yours and Lisa's rather rushed courtship, too. What was it, three weeks before you got engaged? And how has that turned out for you? Your 25th anniversary is coming up soon, yes?" Now that he looks appropriately chagrined by her reminder, she adds in, "So perhaps criticizing speedy relationships isn't quite the way to go in making your point with the boys..."

Mr. Woods is then the definition of defensive. "Okay, that was not the same at all. The situation was..." he trails off, changes direction, "And it was more than three weeks! We'd known each other before and...." another switch and now he's glaring at his sister-in-law for letting him dig himself deeper into this hole.

"Three weeks, Dad?" Michael asks, a curious eyebrow raised at the surprising information he has somehow never heard before. It does seem to relax him a little, though.

"Fine," his father gives. "Look, alright, maybe I'm wrong. But, Michael, you're not known for making particularly informed decisions or thinking through the consequences of your actions. You've jumped into decisions before and you've crashed and burned or given up," Michael seems like he wants to argue at this point, but he starts listing off examples to counter any oncoming protests, "That whole month you were determined to become a guitarist? Your pilates phase? The three changes in your major while you were in college? Forgive me, son, for thinking that this is just another phase. So, if you two insist on doing this, then it's going to be by my rules. If," he says, stressing the word, "If Jake is willing to come to California, then he can stay in the pool house. You will be working at the law firm, reward money or no. We'll see where it goes from there, okay?"

"It's not a phase, Dad, I swear. You can't justifiably compare a couple of hobbies to this," Michael says, letting his fingers curl around Jake's. "But you do have a deal. I'll do whatever it takes to prove it to you." His gaze lands on Jake, because it is up to him to agree, "As long as you're in, too?"

It's not even really a question. Even if Jake were opposed to the idea of going back to the States, he wouldn't have much of a choice given that he no longer has a boat - and by proxy, a home - and if he did, he wouldn't be able to work it very well with the healing wound in his shoulder. Still, it's Michael that drives his answer, a quick and unhesitant, "Yeah, yeah, I'm in," that makes Michael grin.

"Then California it is," Mr. Woods agrees. "We'll leave as soon as Jake's able to."

***

That's not right away, though. While most of Jake's possessions had been aboard the Tiffany, luckily most of the important documents and some belongings have been stowed away in a storage unit. They plan to ship whatever they can back to California, but that, along with the other items on the lengthy list of things to do before they can leave, will wait until morning.

After dinner ends, a lengthy affair that continues much more amicably once the conversation regarding Jake and Michael concludes, they all go their separate ways. Tommy and his mother to their room, Mr. Woods to his own, and Michael and Jake retreat back to theirs.

Jake's bordering on exhausted again, the combination of the stress of the discussion and the pain medication in his system drawing him toward the bed. "Mm, night," he mumbles, stifling a yawn, but he finds his plans thwarted when Michael steps between him and the impending comfort of the cushiony mattress.

"Hey, let me change your bandage first, okay?" he says, "We need to make sure no infections set in."

"Alright, yeah," Jake agrees, though he still moves to sit on the edge of the bed. Michael goes to fetch the necessary supplies and wash his hands, reappearing with another dose of Jake's medications and some water, both of which Jake obligingly swallows down. The shirt he wore to dinner - one of Michael's, some nice, light dress shirt like the one he'd cut the sleeves off of - comes off smoothly, Michael's hands easing it off his shoulders and tossing it aside. He sets to work then on the bandage, carefully plucking at the surgical tape holding it down until it gives and comes up easily. Jake winces a little, but it's over soon enough. There are lingering traces of the antiseptic used during the surgery, staining his skin a strange brownish-yellow color and there are some remnants of dried blood, as well. "Look okay?"

"I have to say," Michael starts, using a washcloth wet with warm water to clean the area around the stitches, which look neat and show no indication of any redness or irritation that would suggest infection, "This looks much better than the bullet holes did."

Jake laughs, "I would hope so." He stays perfectly still as Michael pats his shoulder dry and then as he applies a bit of antibiotic ointment to the wounds, now that they're as clean as they can be. His mind wanders back to the island, where Tommy said something that he's been meaning to question. "Tommy said you were pretty freaked out about it, when you two were waiting out the pirates."

"Well, yeah," the older boy responds, intently focused on the bandage he's applying so he doesn't have to watch Jake as he explains. "For all I knew, it was worse than we'd thought and you'd bleed to death on the boat before we could do anything to get you back. And, I might've been worried that they'd make that happen, too. Which I guess I was kind of right about - like you said, if they didn't know you'd work as leverage..." The thought of that leads to thoughts of his nightmare, which leads to the overwhelming desire to be as close to Jake as possible as quickly as possible. "I don't even want to think about that."

Jake seems surprised by the out of nowhere move Michael makes that results in that start of a rather passionate kiss. He's bone tired, but he still gives into the movement, kissing back as his good hand settles on Michael's chest, pulling him down as Jake falls backwards slowly, always careful of his shoulder. Michael moves over him, braces himself with one arm, and lets the other drag over Jake's bare chest as his tongue explores Jake's mouth. His lips move to press along the line of Jake's jaw and then down his neck, where the steady beat of his pulse seems to relax Michael somewhat. "You're not the only one having nightmares, you know. Watching Frakes shoot you again and again and again..." Another kiss, this one as long and drawn out as possible. "Pretty much everything I was afraid was happening when Tommy and I were down in the caves happens in the nightmares and they feel so real, Jake."

"I know," Jake says, fighting for the words as contentment combats conscious thought, "but - like you said, it's not real. I'm right here and, well, relatively undamaged. But I can do this," he leans up to kiss Michael this time, lets his hand slide under Michael's shirt and pushing at the fabric, dragging it up until Michael's forced to move to allow him to get it over his head. He tosses it aside and adds, "so I'm clearly not dead, yeah?"

"Yeah," Michael laughs. Another quick kiss and he's smiling as he pushes the nightmarish vision away and focuses on Jake splayed out under him, all flushed and relaxed and his. "Yeah, you're right," he says, sitting up. His hands move to Jake's pants, which are also technically Michael's, but that hardly matters because if he gets his way they're coming off.

Jake arches up off the bed and into Michael's touch as the pants get shucked aside and hands continue to explore, but he's forgotten his injury and he yelps in surprise as the pain flares in his shoulder. Michael halts immediately, a worried, "You okay?" spilling from his lips even as he helps Jake sit up so he can make sure of it himself. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, I just-"

"No, not your fault," Jake assures him, as the pain starts to fade again. He rolls to his side, so he doesn't have to risk pressure on the tender wound, and leans into Michael when he curls up behind him, an arm circling around to keep him close. "It's better, but can we maybe not take things any further for now?"

"Of course," Michael agrees, though he can't resist leaning in close enough to press a soft kiss along Jake's neck again. "Nothing else," he promises, "not until you want it."

Jake doesn't look quite ready to fall asleep yet, the spike in pain having forced him back into consciousness a little more than he'd realized, so he opts for talking instead. "California'll be okay, right?"

Michael nods, a move which Jake feels more than he sees. "Yeah, I'll work with my Dad, you can go to school, like you wanted. There's still time to get in before the Fall semester starts, I think. Or wait and start in the Spring, give your arm some time to heal," he says, leaving kisses along the edge of the bandage on Jake's bad shoulder, "and there's a marina about thirty minutes from home, if you want to stick with boats. We could even come back here in the summers. The pirate's boat is going up for auction, we could probably make an offer on it beforehand and get it for a good price, call it the Tiffany II? That sound good?"

Jake nods, the ideas flowing through his own mind, too, now. Summers spent teaching Michael the finer points of running a boat, getting back to classes at college, spending time with Michael. "Yeah, sounds great," he answers, letting himself drift off to sleep with those images in mind to displace the always lingering traces of half-formed nightmares that he already knows won't reach him or Michael tonight.


	7. Chapter 7

Jake's sitting at one of the tables outside of the on-campus coffee shop, surrounded by the bustling crowd of students heading to and from their classes and cars. He's got an open biology textbook in front of him, and he's armed with a notebook and a variety of colorful highlighters, as well. It's his second semester here, and it's drawing to a close as Spring Break is set to begin in just a few days. He's got several of his general classes out of the way and he's focusing on biology, specifically of the marine variety as that's his major; and he's throwing a history minor into that, as well, given the salvage work he used to do with his father.

"Hey, babe," Michael greets, sliding into the seat across from him. "How'd your midterm go?"

The book closes, one of the highlighters stuck between the pages to keep his place for later. "Pretty well, I think. Then again, thinking I did well generally means I bombed. It's only when I think I did terribly that I actually end up acing things."

Michael shakes his head. "No way you do anything less than awesome on it. You've been studying for that exam for a week and a half."

"Well, let's hope so," Jake agrees, gathering his things and shoving them back into his bag. "We heading home now?"

"I was, ugh," Michael starts, standing once Jake does and leading the way to his car, parked just off campus, "actually thinking, maybe you'd want to go to dinner? It's been a while since we've both been free."

Jake nods, "Yeah, that sounds great," he agrees with a smile that grows even more intense when Michael straight out beams at him as they climb into the car.

"Fantastic."

Jake's anticipating a trip to some local restaurant or a stop off to pick up some carry-out in terms of Michael's plans for dinner, then maybe a night spent sprawled across the couch with a movie or a game. Jake isn't exactly dressed for anything particularly fancy, either - as college doesn't really necessitate anything more than jeans and t-shirt sort of attire (which is far dressier than some of his classmates, specifically those that show up in pajama pants and hooded sweatshirts and appear as though they've only just rolled out of bed) - so unless Michael is planning a stop off at home, their options are limited. But, they bypass the way back to the house and nearly every place that Jake can think of, so he's somewhat perplexed by the time they end up at the marina where the Tiffany II is docked.

"Been planning this, have you?" Jake asks, eyebrow raised as Michael parks the car.

"Maybe," Michael grins at him. The boat's about halfway down the main pier, and he has most definitely been planning something because there's really no other reason that a fully catered dinner should be prepared for their arrival. No one else is aboard, just the two of them. There's wine, too - Jake's not technically allowed to drink now that he's back in the States, but the drinking age in Australia is 18 so it's not like he's never done it before - and pretty much every food Jake can remember mentioning he loves, too. Yeah, Michael is definitely planning something.

They stay above deck - Jake has never warmed up to the table he was tied to over night when the pirates were holding him captive - and enjoy their meal as the sun sets over the water. Conversation is calm and typical, a combination of school, work, and plans for Michael's upcoming 24th birthday that causes them to lose track of time. 

Michael's jumpy, though. The same way he was when they were stalling out on the conversation with Michael's Dad about their relationship - to which the man has greatly warmed - and so Jake is justifiably concerned by his behavior. His fingers are nervously tapping against the table edge, and he keeps biting his lip as if he wants to say something, and he keeps reaching for the black cord necklace that's attached to Jake's gold coin. Jake lasts about halfway through dessert until he can't take it anymore.

"Hey," he says, one hand crossing the small table to cover Michael's shaking one. "Relax, okay? What's wrong?"

"Nothing" Michael responds. Too quickly. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just..."

Jake waits for him to finish the sentence. "Just...?"

Michael stands, mumbles something that might roughly translate to "hold on a minute," and disappears below deck. Jake stares after him, more confused than ever, and just as he's getting up to follow after - half convinced that he's sick or injured or otherwise not in his right mind - Michael reappears. He looks no different from when he left, but he does seem to be even more anxious.

"Are you okay?" Jake asks catching hold of his arm as he returns to the table.

"Yeah, just had to get something, is all," Michael assures him, making no move to return to his seat, instead hovering awkwardly at Jake's side before he finally forces his body into compliance and drops to his knees. "I, ugh, I'm sorry I'm being weird. I just... Let's just say that preparation has met opportunity." He drags a hand over his face and refrains from mentioning that he's been planning this for over a month, just waiting for the chance when both of them had the time to get out here and enjoy themselves. He'll cover that later. After.

"Okay," Jake says, eyeing him suspiciously. "What is it?"

"I want to... Will you marry me?"

Jake blinks. Stares. Blinks again and stares some more because Michael is still on his knees next to him and he's watching Jake like he could either completely make or totally shatter his entire world depending on his answer. "What?" His voice is a little more monotone than he intends, but he's more than a little surprised by this unexpected turn of events.

Michael's fumbling for his pocket, then. Producing a velvet covered case that he snaps open once he gets his hands to stop shaking long enough to complete the task. "I, ugh, I really hope you don't mind, but I had them made out of the coin. I figured since it saved both our lives it was kind of appropriate and..." Rambling Michael has arrived, Jake is far from surprised to see, and he's still going even though he attempts to cut in. "I know we can't actually get married, but maybe one day we can, maybe not in California, but somewhere and you know I love you, since before we even got off the island, probably, and after all we've been through to get to this point... I want this, you, for as long as I can have you and hopefully that'll be for a very, very long time. And please, please say yes?" The case, which Michael now offers him, holds two identical golden rings - and Jake is nothing if not impressed that the single coin equated to two rings. 

"Are you serious?" The smile on Jake's face is one of complete shock and awe and Michael seems to be relaxing quite a bit now that he's seen it, too.

He nods as he shifts closer, curling the fingers of his free hand around Jake's. "What do you say?"

Jake stands, pulls Michael to his feet, as well. "I don't know what to say," he answers. Michael's face freezes in something close to tortured and Jake takes the jump to put him out of his misery, because there really is only one answer to Michael's question. "Yes," he says, leaning forward to kiss Michael as passionately as he possibly can. "Absolutely, yes."

"Then 'yes,' it is." Michael grins against his lips, the kiss lasting for a long, long moment before he pulls away to carefully slide the gold ring onto Jake's finger; he lets Jake return the favor and then pulls him in close again. Hands entwine and foreheads press together as they break apart from another drawn out meeting of lips and tongue that leaves them both breathless and heated. Dessert is left forgotten on the table as Michael pulls Jake below deck to the brand new bed in the small stateroom so that they can properly celebrate.


End file.
